Big Data Does A Lot Yet Not Everything
March 8, 2013
Big data is a wonder tool that is supposed to improve how organizations use their information and advertently make everything better. GCN took a look at “Four Ways Big Data Can Save Lives And Money.” The article breaks down a Tech American Foundation survey “Big Data And the Public Sector.” Across the board the study claims that big data is providing the veritable magic data wand people have been wishing for:
“Both federal and state IT officials believe big data analytics can have real and immediate impacts on how governments operate, from helping to predict crime to cutting waste and fraud, according to the survey of nearly 200 public sector IT professionals commissioned by SAP AG, and conducted by pollsters Penn Schoen and Berland.”
Big data has been deployed by NASA for airline safety, Homeland Security for its bio-preparedness collective, the National Weather Service for weather patterns, and police departments to prevent crime. The analytics offer new and valuable insights. Saving lives has been tacked as the number one reason big data is useful; it helps medical researchers aggregate data. Crime prevention, improving life quality from fixing potholes to repairing social/welfare programs, and saving money were other ways that big data is helpful.
Big data can do wonders for information, but it is not a magic wand that can be waved and POOF the world is magically fixed. Big data provides the insights, people do the rest.
Whitney Grace, March 08, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Data Manipulation And Intent
March 8, 2013
Data supposedly tells us about what happened in a project, but while the data may record an action it does not record the intent behind it. The Tow Center for Digital Journalism takes a look at “What The Tesla Affair Tells Us About Data Journalism.” The article points out that intent can shape data, but the context is lost when it turns into cold hard facts. The truth about data is related to the recent Tesla test drive review. Tesla was very upset when New York Times reporter John Broder gave a poor review on the new car and stated that it did not factually represent it. Tesla did not release the data from Broder’s review, only the company’s interpretation of the review data.
At this point, no one can really tell the truth about the vehicle. Broder could provide context, but his opinion has already become devalued. It is also important to remember that Tesla only wanted the review for publicity and all negative truths were bad PR.
What we can learn is:
“So, to recap. The Tesla Affair reinforces that: data does not equal fact; that context matters enormously to data journalism; that trust and documentation are even more important in a world of data journalism; and that companies will continue to prioritize positive PR over good journalism in reviews of their products.”
Great, more reason to doubt data, but people have been manipulating it since time began. Will this become a greater trend, though? Is this a caution for consumer oriented analytics systems?
Whitney Grace, March 08, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
SEO Pro Suggests Peers Try Ethics
March 8, 2013
Transparency and ethics in the search engine optimization field? Interesting. Writer Pratik Dholakiya at the Search Engine Journal has some advice for his colleagues in, “Let’s Make the SEO Industry Crystal Clear and Ethical in the Year Ahead!”
The article opens with this acknowledgement: in SEO circles, “ethics” and “transparency” have become dirty words, connected to Google‘s highly-resented efforts to impose quality control onto its search results. Dholakiya seems to understand he is swimming against the tide with his fifteen suggestions, most of which focus on ways to embrace, rather than reflexively reject, such principles. For example, he suggests his peers resist the urge to protect secrets from their clients and, instead, involve them in their planning. He may get more traction with entry number two, which attempts to position “ethics” as a question of smart strategy rather than morals.
See the article if you are curious about Dholakiya’s advice. The Panda and Penguin make an appearance, of course, as do radical concepts like building strong relationships and emphasizing the long view over short-term thinking. His conclusions give us a clue about why he feels now is the time to implore his colleagues to change their tune:
“We are entering an age when SEO can’t be considered separate from online marketing in general. Instead, SEO has become an online branding effort with an emphasis on search, requiring many of the general marketing skills that other online marketers take advantage of.
“Unlike, say, PPC [Pay Per Click], we don’t have the option of specializing on a small and specific set of skills. Link building, social media, keyword research, branding, conversions, content production, relationship building, viral marketing, and rich snippets: it’s all a part of SEO. This is the year to let our clients know that we are comprehensive internet marketing experts with the skills to bring them long term success and opportunities!”
So, he suggests that behaving ethically might better serve these consultants in an evolving landscape. What a novel concept.
Cynthia Murrell, March 08, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Sinequa Making an Impact In Enterprise Information Access
March 8, 2013
Our team at Beyond Search has maintained a continued interest in Sinequa, an enterprise information access firm based in Paris, for many years. This innovative company has made an impact in the information retrieval realm with the primary mission of empowering users. According to ArnoldIT’s newest Search Wizards Speak interview, “Sinequa: An Interview with Luc Manigot” by Beyond Search’s Stephen Arnold, Sinequa is doing this with real-time, intuitive, business-focused access to information.
The company stands out in this competitive field by tackling information in a range of file types, sources, and systems in what the company calls “unified information access.” In the interview, Sinequa Chief Operating Officer Luc Manigot expands on the benefits of the company:
“Today we do think that our solution offers a real advantage over others, and customers stand to gain by replacing other solutions by ours. We have a growing business in replacing legacy search systems from other companies. Siemens, for example, has found that Sinequa provides its employees with information access, not headaches.”
The company serves hundreds of thousands of people in more than 250 organizations with unique search-based applications. We find Sinequa’s problem-solving approach refreshing and strongly encourage you to learn more about the system at http://www.sinequa.com.
Andrea Hayden, March 08, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Hortonworks Brings Big Data to Microsoft
March 7, 2013
Open source and Microsoft are fairly strange bedfellows. It is not often that readers would find the two mentioned in the same headline. However, what is a common headline these days is Big Data. For readers looking for headlines surrounding that term, there is no shortage. All of the themes above come together in one of the latest CMS Wire stories, “Hortonworks Brings Open Source Big Data Hadoop Platform To Microsoft’s Windows.”
The article begins:
“Further evidence that big data is going mainstream is the announcement from Hortonworks that its Hortonworks Data Platform for Windows (HDPW) is available in beta, making it the first Apache Hadoop distribution that is available for both Windows and Linux . . . HDPW should be on general releases as early as the second quarter. Using it, Hortonworks continues its mission to extend Apache Hadoop to every corner of the enterprise. With this release, users will be able to capture any amount of data and share it in any format, scaled to any size.”
So open source is on the move and no one can stop it, leaving the proprietary giants to get out of the way or adopt. It seems that Microsoft has chosen the latter. But just because everyone is scrambling to offer an open source based Big Data solution, it does not mean that they are all created equal. Take LucidWorks for example. Their LucidWorks Big Data rests on the power of Lucene and Solr and builds on years of industry experience. Plus, it is backed up by industry-leading support and training.
Emily Rae Aldridge, March 7, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Oracle Rolls Out Text Index Strategy
March 7, 2013
Oracle’s support of locally partitioned indexes has created a need for users to be able to split those indexes and rebuild them in a timely manner. How do you rebuild an index without making your application unavailable for the entire time?
Prsync’s look into the maintenance disadvantages and subsequent problem solving by Oracle in “Partition Maintenance and Oracle Text Indexes” gives us a look at something new; a “Without Validation” and “Split Partition” features. These options offer a way to rebuild indexes without checking each line-by-line first.
“That solves the problem, but it’s rather heavy-handed. So instead we need to institute some kind of “change management”. There are doubtless several ways to achieve this, but I’ve done it by creating triggers which monitor any updates or inserts on the base table, and copy them to a temporary “staging” table. These transactions can then be copied back to the main table after the partition split or merge is complete, and the index sync’d in the normal way.”
So now that there is a solution, but, by avoiding the need for a system to check every partition key value to make sure the row is going to the correct partition, there is need for extra care when using the without validation feature.
It’s a long needed saving grace that will save time and ultimately money by getting apps back up and running in a more efficient manner but there is no substitute for attention to detail. For a more in-depth look at the process we suggest heading over to prsync.
Leslie Radcliff, March 07, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
BI Magic Quadrant Casting a Spell Over Visionary BI Leaders
March 7, 2013
Gartner’s business intelligence software Magic Quadrant has some big players chomping at the bit. Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM are all major forces in the business intelligence arena and they all want a piece of MQ.
In ZDnet’s “Gartner Releases 2013 BI Magic Quadrant” we get a look at those big fish and why they’re interested in this new Magic Quadrant. One thing to keep at the forefront is that Microsoft, IBM, SAP, and Oracle figure prominently into both business intelligence and data warehousing; which is why they all want a piece of MQ, it has both BI and DW capabilities.
“…And speaking of the Big Data world, you will see in the BI MQ report, as you did in the DW MQ, that partnerships and connectors to major Hadoop distributions, and the beginnings of standardization on the R programming language for statistics and predictive analytics, is starting to take place. In fact, in the near future, we may find that distinguishing between DW, BI and Big Data markets will be a contrived endeavor. These worlds will likely become like neighborhoods in the same city…”
Microsoft is a leader in the ability to execute and it has more than a little BI experience but IBM is really the frontrunner in the completeness of its vision. It is a master of acquisition and it is those planned and executed acquisitions that have propelled IBM forward in the era of Microsoft.
That Gartner has been able to develop a system that has excited the Big Four and created a veritable “arms” race is something to smile about.
Leslie Radcliff, March 07, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
MicroStrategy Making No Small Changes to Business Intelligence
March 7, 2013
MicroStrategy rolls out big changes in the mobile computing marketplace in 2013 despite interior reorganization and the future looks bright for the business intelligence technology provider.
“MicroStrategy Doubles Down on Mobile Data Visualization,” gives us a look into the intelligence vender and its updated focus on cloud, social and visual analysis and how it will fare against opponents like Oracle and Tableau.
“Mobile has been a big part of MicroStrategy’s focus for at least three years, and it has been steadfast in its strategy to build native apps for iPhone, iPad and Android devices. The native-app approach differs from that of many other BI vendors who are betting on HTML 5… In its latest release, MicroStrategy has continued to refine the online and offline performance of its mobile apps with smart caching, support for video and PDF content inside dashboards, and usage tracking of BI activities on the device.”
Big changes were announced for MicroStrategy’s 9.3 release and includes an upgrade to Visual Insight, Micro’s visual data discovery technology; the Cloud, now in its second year also looks promising and has more than 30,000 users. A big boost in social networking intelligence will also be an asset though it is still to be seen whether customers can handle their own internal data before they make the jump to social sphere origination.
A big question regarding MicroStrategy is whether or not they will continue to see growth under reconstruction after poor execution in 2012. Compared to the rest of the BI world, it really did not grow into its potential. However, it is a company to take note of and follow.
Leslie Radcliff, March 07, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google Is Big: Another Breathless Description
March 6, 2013
I read with some fatigue “Return of the Borg: How Twitter Rebuilt Google’s Secret Weapon.” The main idea is that Twitter like Google has some metasoftware which allows wonderfully efficient processing to happen in a really wonderful way. Here’s the snippet which I noted:
These systems span a worldwide network of data centers, responding to billions of online requests with each passing second, and when Wilkes first saw them in action, he felt like Neo as he downs the red pill, leaves the virtual reality of the Matrix, and suddenly lays eyes on the vast network of machinery that actually runs the thing. He was gobsmacked at the size of it all — and this was a man who had spent more than 25 years as a researcher at HP Labs, working to push the boundaries of modern computing. “I’m an old guy. Megabytes were big things,” Wilkes says, in describing the experience. “But when I came to Google, I had to add another three zeros to all my numbers.” Google is a place, he explains, where someone might receive an emergency alert because a system that stores data is down to its last few petabytes of space. In other words, billions of megabytes can flood a fleet of Google machines in a matter of hours.
Yep, a motion picture analogy. Forget old school science fiction. The Googles and Twitters are like the movies.
Yesterday in the discussion which followed my Cebit talk, one of the people in the audience asked, “Isn’t Google too big?”
The question underscores the real concern of some folks. Google defines search and quite a few other online experiences. In Europe, Google is the big dog referrer in some countries. Russia seems to be up for grabs. But in Denmark, France, Germany, and Spain, Google reigns supreme.
Behind the question is a sense at least in the mind of one person at my lecture, that Google is a little too big.
My comment to the questioner was, “Isn’t it a little late to be worrying about Google. Where were you in 1998?”
The audience fell silent, presumably reflecting on the fact that Google has shifted search and retrieval from old fashioned metrics of precision and recall to “good enough” from statistical and advertising methods of determining what one gets from a query.
One of the folks at the session was deep into a study of what “good enough” means. Why not ask Google and replicate a breathless list of astounding technical achievements. That works for Wired. Won’t the method work for those who want to understand the brave old worlds of Google, Twitter, and other modern information systems?
Excellence is good enough when it produces big revenues, convenience, and the doubt about where to go for information. Maybe that’s why Google is headed toward $1,000 a share and “regular” search vendors are struggling to stay afloat? Autonomy’s value heads south. Google surges upwards. I think there is a message there.
Stephen E Arnold, March 6, 2013
Red Hat Ventures into Big Data Analytics
March 6, 2013
Red Hat is a well-known leader in open source technology, and has made a name for itself as one of the largest contributors to the Linux kernel. Red Hat has once again made headlines as it ventures into the world of Big Data and its newest trend, analytics. Datacenter Dynamics covers the story in their article, “Red Hat Brings Open-source to Big Data Analytics for Enterprises.”
“Red Hat announced its big data direction and solutions earlier this week, aiming at enterprise requirements for scalable and reliable infrastructure to run analytics workloads. The company also announced it would contribute the Red Hat Storage Hadoop plug-in to the ApacheTM Hadoop open-source community to turn Red Hat Storage into a Hadoop-compatible file system for big data requirements.”
Analytics may be a new buzzword, in the same way Big Data made the rounds last year. However, the fundamentals are still true. Enterprises need a way to give massive amounts of unstructured data some meaning, and many developers and companies are throwing their hat in that ring. LucidWorks is a leader that has been around for a long time, responding to the shifts in the market with open source solutions. Check out their LucidWorks Big Data for another alternative.
Emily Rae Aldridge, March 6, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
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